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What Is Behind Spike In Chicago Violence?

CHICAGO (CBS) — In the last 24 hours, a dozen shot, five dead in Chicago.

That follows 50 others shot in each of the past two weekends.

CBS 2’s Jim Williams looks into the cause of the spike in violence.

For decades, we’ve heard the reasons: drugs, gangs, guns, poverty.

“Hopelessness,” said Chicago Police Commander Ronald Holt, whose son, Blair, was murdered while riding a CTA bus. “People living in poverty who have developed a ‘I don’t care’ attitude. So the slightest of things will set them off and heaven forbid they’re in possession of an illegal firearm.”

But adding to the mix now, Holt said, are hundreds of tiny gangs, not just the handful of large, entrenched gangs.

“You can have gang factions and street crews that are protecting merely one block.”

That leads to violent clashes and retaliation. It’s not always over drugs, but insults on the street and on social media.

“It escalates to seeing your adversary– the person you argue with–out on the street then depending on who you are, where you are and how you’re feeling you may strike out at that person with a gun.”

Crisis responder Dawn Valenti sees the carnage and wants protesters in the black community to respond the way they do when a police officer shoots an unarmed man or woman.

“I can see over 200 kids marching downtown because a police officer killed a man but they’re not out here marching, about this woman, her pregnant daughter.”